Tuesday, 1 April 2008

I think immigration effects the poorest in our society disproportionally and the lords' report says so. However he root cause for this is that low paid jobs do not produce any improvement in standard of living compared to being on benefits. What immigration has done is to reduce the pay in low paid jobs to below the level where it is worth working if benefits can be claimed instead. We now have an underclass that cannot afford to take any work, or for whom taking work pays such a tiny amount of money it is not worthwhile. Instead they stay poor, or they do illegal work. Of course immigrants are taking the illegal work too... The benefits/low pay interaction must be fixed, if we are to see any improvement in the life chances of the poorest in our society, for whom immigration is a disaster on top of an already bad situation.